


A Million Dirty Waves

by soniagiris



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: 5+1 Things, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Death, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, Life is Strange Fusion, Smoking, Spoilers, Temporary Character Death, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 20:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11608314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soniagiris/pseuds/soniagiris
Summary: Five times he saves her, and one time she saves everything but him.ENDGAME LIFE IS STRANGE SPOILERS; CHAPTER THREE OF V3 SPOILERS





	A Million Dirty Waves

**Author's Note:**

> warnings in the end notes o/ ty to vee @ikuzonos for screaming about this au w/ me, then betaing it ♥

1.

 

In all the books Shuichi has read, death took different shapes. Cold, alone, abandoned, or — calmly resigned, even satisfied, and never, ever, lonely. 

When he hears the gunshot coming from behind the bathroom stall where he hid from the world, one of his scrambling thoughts jumps to a passage from a novel he read recently, a short remark about death being just a part of life.

When he stands up, he decides it's not a quote he can get behind. Someone is dying, or already dead, just a few meters away, and this sudden realization makes him sick. 

When he sees a (strangely familiar) girl falling, falling onto her side, her eyes still bright, another thought makes him notice she has a pink butterfly tattooed on her wrist. For a moment, it seems to move.

When a short, messy boy cocks the gun in his direction, Shuichi reaches out as if to stop him. Idiot's move. It won't work. His heart beats stronger than before — as if it was about to burst free — this small organ already knowing Shuichi's about to—

And then everything stops. The girl's body freezes in mid-air, her blond hair spilling out of her purple beanie. He barely has the time to see how a few strands stick to the wet, fresh redness on her t-shirt.

 

* * *

 

2.

 

Kaede changed more than Shuichi would think possible. She cut her hair short and replaced sweatshirts and blazers with ragged tank-tops and mud-stained combat boots. Shuichi watches her inked arm move as she taps out a complicated rhythm on the gun's trigger, then clears his throat.

"You said something about..."

"Putting your so-called rewind powers to good use, yeah." Kaede doesn't look at him, too busy mock-targeting the bottles she set on a rusty car's hood. "So, Sherlock, off you go."

Shuichi delegates only the smallest part of his mind to wonder about the usage of his old nickname. However, he's not sufficiently brave to call Kaede by her first name anymore. Thinking about her that way would be enough. Should be enough. 

Rewind, advise Kaede, watch, have her shoot, rewind. His head hurts, waves of pain synced with his pulse, but at least she's smiling again. 

"Okay, that was cool," she declares after shattering the car's front light. "But give me something better."

Shuichi rewinds, then says,

"How about the bumper?"

"Mm," Kaede hums absently, then aims at it. 

The sound of gunshot mixes with her shriek; she falls to her knees, clutching her stomach, and blood spills over the butterfly on her skin—

"Rewind!" she hisses out. Shuichi complies.

And then Kaede is alive, and so is the memory of her dying.

 

* * *

 

3.

 

At first, Shuichi thinks he only stood up too fast, but then the wind of tornado hits his face so hard he almost feels his skin peeling off, and he can't breathe, everything is too much and—

"Saihara! Saihara! _ Shuichi!  _ Help!"

The ominous hum of the oncoming tornado is replaced with the metallic clack-clack-clack of a train that's speeding towards Kaede, and she's squirming on the rails, trying to free her boot from where she got it stuck, and the warm air tastes like needles and iron.

"Get me out of here!" she screams, and her voice cracks like a broken spine, and oh, oh shit, this is  _ so not the time _ for fancy metaphors. Her fingers dig into the soil as she struggles. Shuichi looks around in a frenzy, trying to think of something, anything, for the love of god, there has to be something! 

His eyes fall on the fusebox, and he sprints there, hoping that it will work out and he won't have to watch Kaede die again, and he forces off a cover, and swears upon the sight of cables; god, something, anything sharp, just that would be—

And then Kaede's increasingly panicked (begging) shouts cut off  — as if someone snipped her out of the world. And Shuichi doesn't even look away from the wires. He wipes the blood from under his nose, then stretches his fingers out and gently tugs on the timeline. 

 

* * *

 

4.

 

The whirr of machines surrounding Kaede is somehow louder than the tornado Shuichi can't stop  _ fucking _ seeing. Her hands rest limply on the blanket, and the atrophied muscles in her forearm make him think of how she argued with Sakakura-san or talked back to Ikusaba. 

"Are you... Are you sure you want me to live with that?" Shuichi asks after a while of expectant silence. Kaede blinks at him slowly, each movement more and more tired, and it's damn obvious that her time, no matter what Munakata-san and Chisa-san say, will end sooner than— than it should end. 

"It's the only way," Kaede rasps out, her eyes never leaving his. Somehow, their pink color has faded so much it looks like there's water in her veins, not blood. "I tried to be brave. I absolutely did. But this is too much. For me. For Mom and Dad." She bites on her lip, so very weakly. "Please, be brave for me."

And that's the breaking point. Shivering as if it was December, not an unusually hot April, Shuichi stands up from his chair — and twiddles with the morphine dial. He tells himself not to look at Kaede. Not to hold her hand. Not to cry.

He does all of this. Then thinks of Munakata-san's tired smile the man forced a few hours ago, and the flash of Polaroid camera five years ago, and Shuichi makes a decision.

He lets go of her limp palm and reaches for the photo album on Kaede's lap; careful not to touch even an inch of her (cooling) skin, he pulls out a picture of two smiling faces. He barely notices how girly and young both of them look, frozen in their youth.

A few seconds pass. An eternity passes. The winds of time choke him, but Shuichi doesn't feel an ounce of regret.

Does he?

 

* * *

 

5.

 

Her face twisting when she spots Maizono-san's makeshift grave, Kaede crosses her arms and looks around. Shuichi hovers nearby, occasionally flashing the torch's light in random directions. It's not quite helpful, he does realize that, because Ouma won't be hard to spot with his white clothes and loud attitude — but, on the other hand… Shuichi can't say he feels as if he should be here. 

"Where the hell is that little shit," Kaede lights up a cigarette and takes a few nervous drags. "He texted…"

"He texted that he'll be here," Shuichi finishes, turning to her and numbly fingering the power switch on his flashlight. "We just need to wait."

"But how much—"

A gunshot. Kaede manages to take a step backward. Blood spills from between her eyes. Her knees give out.

"No!" Shuichi cries, a heartbeat away from rewinding, but then he feels a pinprick on his neck, and—

And—

No. No no  _ no. _ His fingers twitch as he tries to pull on the flow of time, and a few seconds burst before his eyes, but a veil of sweetly sick drowsiness cuts him off, and Shuichi is, somehow, still focused on Kaede's absent gaze, and, oh, when did he fall, too?

Fuck. He's going to kill Ou—

A kick to his ribs. Shuichi gasps, then weakly rolls to his other side and—

Shinguji-sensei. One of most famous photographers in Japan. The teacher at Hope's Peak. A few days ago, after explaining what camera obscura is, he told Shuichi's class that being called 'sensei' makes him feel old, and then giggled to himself. 

A murderer. 

Everything goes blank.

 

* * *

 

6.

 

"Let me go, please," Kaede sobs out. "Please. You have to do this." 

She's shaking. Her hold on his hands is tight. Her eyes swim. It— it hurts, it really hurts Shuichi, but—

"Okay," he manages. "Okay, I will, okay." 

He tries to take step back, but — but if it's the last time he sees her like this, so close to closure—

Their intentions coincide, and when Shuichi leans forward, so does Kaede, and the kiss they share is the only warm spot inside the storm.  When he rests his hand on her cheek, her tears spill over his fingers.

Finally — too early — they pull away. No words are needed, not anymore. Shuichi doesn't look at anything else but the photo. 

And then he feels the familiar weight of his camera in his hands. Watching the butterfly flutter away, he steps backward. His knees buckle. Ouma's chuckles and Kaede's increasingly angry shouts fade out. 

The gunshot doesn't.

**Author's Note:**

> a/n
> 
>   * **cw: guns; gunshot wounds; swearing; train crash; euthanasia; terminal illness; drugs; violence; pda**
>   * ok ok i watched lis some time ago and became Extremely emotional about it (just *points at my icon* look at this. i love chloe more than my goddamn life) so the proper next step was writing a v3 crossover o/
>   * ok ok so characters are: saihara as max, akamatsu as chloe, tenko (?) as warren, ouma as nathan, shinguji as jefferson, maizono as rachel, ikusaba as frank (yep u see vee's influence here), sakakura as david, yukizome as joyce, munakata as william (and i think hoshi was kate??? and someone i don't remember was victoria. um. angie maybe??? idk)
>   * title, ofc, comes from 'spanish sahara' owo
>   * btw if u see any mistakes feel free to point em out o/
>   * i wrote this such. a long time ago haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
>   * once again, an announcement: i'm gonna delete some of my shorter (<500 words) works and post them together in a big-ass drabble collection so don't be Scare if smth disappears bc it'll be Back
> 



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